Shooting in the Dark

identification with the aggressive male, or that it is a parody of patriarchal domination, I can only point to the deep libidinal satisfaction experienced by both parties. Miriam and I are equally intent on experimenting with our lives, our bodies, our feelings and emotions.
     
    Someone who keeps his eyes open, who watches what is going on, is in a unique position in the world. He sees everything that is enacted. He sees the same things as everyone else, but he sees beyond the surface illusion into the meaning of the events.
    When the blind woman was released from hospital she moved into the house of the private detective. This must have been his idea. A better way for him to keep his (private) eye on her. I don’t know if there were other considerations, if, for example, he is seeking sexual congress with the lady. Whether or not they are sharing a bed is of no concern to me.
    But I watched the house.
    And a weird thing happened, though to me it did not seem strange at the time. A man walked along the street. My attention was caught because of his body language. He hesitated outside the detective’s house then walked on by. As he did so he had a good look at the house, scanned the upper windows. A few moments later he was back again, but this time he went up to the front door and posted a letter through the flap. When he walked back the way he had come he glanced behind him a couple of times, as if to make sure that he was not being followed or observed.
    I didn’t pay this happening too much attention. I am concerned only with the fate of the blind woman. I thought maybe the man was some kind of snitch delivering hush-hush information. I speculated that perhaps he was another private eye acting in a manner typical of the profession. Or, finally, that the man was somewhat unhinged and spent his life glancing back at imaginary pursuers.
    Whatever, I concluded the man was nothing to do with me.
    But I was wrong.
    The newspaper article gives the text of the letter, which turns out to be a demand for money in exchange for the life of Angeles Falco. There is speculation in the newspaper about the identity of the sender, and the journalist, Lorna George, assumes that ‘the killer of Isabel Reeves, the thug who put Angeles Falco in hospital, and the writer of the letter are one and the same person’.
    I can control my emotions. I am actually experiencing anger at this moment but I don’t let it show on the page. If you were here with me, face to face, you would not guess that I was outraged, or even annoyed.
    But I am furious.
    There are no material considerations at work here. Neither gold nor piety can influence the death of the blind woman. Her life is owed to me. It is a debt that can only be settled by her death.
    This man, this idiot who delivered the letter, has blackened my name.
    I thought of writing to the newspaper, denying all responsibility for the letter. But I stopped myself. It would be mad to expose myself in that way before Ms Falco has breathed her last. But I shall have the letter-writer. I have a picture of him in my mind. I have seen him; and when I see him again...
     

40
     
    During the interview something happened. Angeles wasn’t sure what it was. The man they were talking to, Mr Hayes, didn’t ring true.
    It had been a busy day in the office and she had been distracted from the problems in her personal life. The soft-drinks industry is always at full stretch in the weeks and days coming up to Christmas, and this year was no different. For once she hadn’t thought about the death of her sister, and the more or less constant feeling of being observed had been absent.
    The last job of the day was to interview Mr Hayes together with her PA, Steven Packard. Hayes had applied for money from the Falco Trust to provide a holiday for a group of partially sighted children. They were to be taken by coach to a holiday camp in the south of Italy.
    ‘Our organization uses the camp regularly,’ he said. ‘We have taken several groups of children there in the past, and it’s always been successful. This would be the first time that we take children who are partially sighted. In the past there have been children with leukaemia, we have taken groups of orphans, and a tiny group of Down’s Syndrome kids.’
    He spoke the right words. It wasn’t anything that he said. There was rather something hidden behind the words. But Angeles felt increasingly claustrophobic listening to him.
    It was as if he